We Didn't Start The Fire
by jhm64892
Summary: What if Karen was friends with Tom before Bombshell? What if Dev and Karen broke up before Bombshell? What if Karen was in Ivy's place?
1. Chapter 1

Tom Levitt had just landed in New York from London. Opening Heaven on Earth on the West End had been a mammoth task, more difficult than it should have been but he was glad to be back. He'd been waiting for his writing partner and best friend Julia so that she could pick him up. He turned his phone and was greeted with a phone call from a friend of his, Karen Cartwright. "Tom, I love you, I love this job. I'd love it even more if I was actually earning any money. Please tell me you have some kind of magic musical that I can be in,"

"Nothing yet Karen, but if Julia and I come up with anything then I'll call you okay?" he said, if he was being honest with himself he'd know he was just placating in an attempt to try and calm Karen, if he was being honest with himself he'd be reminded that Julia was taking time away from Broadway so that she and her husband Frank could adopt the Chinese baby they'd wanted for over ten years, if he was being honest with himself, he'd be able to say that a musical doesn't just appear out of thin air.

"Please Tom, my parents are coming into town next week and I need to tell them good news otherwise they'll put me on a plane back to Iowa faster than I can sing Do Rey Me," she pleaded, her voice reeking of desperation.

"You wouldn't actually get on the plane singing songs from The Sound of Music would you?" Tom joked but he could tell in the way she said the word 'no' that she was in no mood for a laugh "Okay what happened? You're never this annoyed unless something bad happens,"

"You remember I told you that I had that audition for that revival of The Wizard of Oz?" How could he forget? She'd been on and on about it for weeks because she'd actually gotten an audition for the first time in what had seemed like an age "Anyway so I was in the middle of singing Somewhere over the Rainbow and what does the director do? She takes a phone call in the middle of my audition. Not only that but she said I was too innocent and too light. I mean I get the whole thing with being too light, my résumé isn't filled with ensemble roles or anything but it is slightly annoying being told that you're too innocent for the role of Dorothy. I mean how sexy can a thirteen year old be for god's sake?" she said in a half-yell and Tom sympathised, he really did. It was stupid to that an actress was too innocent to play Dorothy Gale, that was like being told you're too aristocratic to play Samantha in High Society or too sexy to play Mimi in Rent. It just didn't make sense.

"Look I'll call some people, see if I can get you something but I can't guarantee anything. Shouldn't your agent be able to hustle something for you?"

"He's crap. It's what I get for picking the cheapest one out of the Yellow Pages, but he's the only one I could afford," she explained with a sigh.

"Can't you borrow some money off Dev?" Tom asked.

"I found him in bed with his boss' secretary last week," she said and he could hear the heartbreak resonating in her voice.

"Do you have a place to stay?" he asked, completely concerned.

"I've been using what money I have to pay for a hotel room until I have a place to stay," She stated and his heart broke for her.

"Pack up your stuff and get your ass to my place. It'll be like a Broadway version of Will and Grace except it'll be more like if Jack moved in with Grace," Karen laughed at Tom's joke.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah of course, what are friends for?"

"Okay, thank you," she said and with that Karen was moving in with Tom.


	2. Chapter 2

Karen arrived at Tom's apartment not long after Tom himself did and she immediately found herself being interrogated as to what she thought about a musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe. This made Karen reply with "Didn't she have a thing going with JFK? You could do a Jackie versus Marilyn number,"

At that suggestion, Julia looked at Tom with a look which seemed to say 'see?' Karen plopped herself onto Tom's couch and allowed herself to sink into the velour leathery material which seemed a comfort considering what she had just been though. "How are you?" Julia asked after recovering from an answer which didn't involve baseball. Whilst in the car on the way back from the airport, Tom had explained everything to Julia and Karen could tell.

"As good as can be expected I suppose; I mean, I'm living out of my suitcase about to crash on my friend's couch because he refuses to let me stay in a hotel, my boyfriend cheated on me and I just failed an audition for Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz because I'm too _innocent_, so yeah I'm… doing okay… considering," by the end of her admittances, Karen had to stop because she was in tears, the realisation that she had become the very opposite of what she'd set out to be had just dawned on her and she didn't like it one little bit.

"Oh sweetie," Julia sighed before enveloping Karen in a big, massive bear hug, the kind that only a mother can give n comfort to anyone. Neither woman cared that Tom's new assistant was watching because both of them knew that Karen wanted, no she _needed _to rid herself of all emotion regarding Dev and all of her current failures. And as Karen tore herself away from the hug, she decided that no longer would she be the vulnerable, naïve Karen Cartwright. Instead she would become a hard-nosed bitch who would do anything for the part and even more to prove that she was capable of maintaining it and that needed a new wardrobe.

The next day, Karen arrived at Tom's apartment, her arms laden with shopping bags as she attempted to push through the door. When she finally managed to get through the door, she noted that Julia and Tom were working on a song in the room he had turned into a recording studio years before. The melody that played had a beautiful, haunting sound to it; she was able to hear Julia singing the lyrics in her beautiful soft voice and she related to them in her current state of broken heartedness. Karen walked into the recording studio and sat down next to Ellis, Tom's new assistant – she didn't like him and she couldn't quite place why, he seemed relatively normal even if he had organised Tom's kitchen so that there was a _tea drawer – _the melody broke and Tom turned around "Karen, you're home would you mind singing this so that we can record it? Julia doesn't want to have her voice on the tape," Tom pleaded, complete with a pout and Karen couldn't refuse.

"Sure," Karen replied and she stepped up to the microphone as Tom handed her the sheet music. To begin with her voice was loud and clear but as she continued she ended up sounding emotionally distraught.

_As a girl, I lived in a million homes  
>So I always would keep to myself<br>And my lessons were learned  
>From the stories and poems<br>I would steal from a library shelf_

_Yes, the books like the Roots  
>Weren't mine to keep<br>But the words weren't left behind  
>And I think of them all and I can't sleep<br>And a poet who read my mind_

_As the wise men once wrote  
>Never give all the heart<br>Well, it's easy to see  
>He was writing for me<br>I just wish I could play that part_

_Yes, he scribbled that love isn't worth thinking of  
>That is fades out from kiss to kiss<br>If I just learned those lines  
>Well, just think of the misery I'd miss<em>

_As the Irish men said  
>Don't put your heart up to play<br>When he warned of the cost  
>And the heart that he lost<br>Mister Yeats really paved the way_

_For the men that I've known  
>Who have clearly shown<br>They've reading him from the start  
>'Cause when it comes to me<br>Well, their kisses come free  
>But they never give all the heart<em>

_When he warned of the cost  
>And the heart that he lost<br>Mister Yeats really paved the way_

_For the men that I've known  
>Well, they've clearly shown<br>They been reading him from the start  
>'Cause each time that I fall<br>They never give all the heart_

_MmmmmmMmmm..._

"Do we need to do another take?" she asked, looking at the faces of everyone in the room, jaws were practically on the floor.

"No sweetie that was perfect," Julia said and Karen smiled proudly.

The next day, Karen woke at 6am to hear Julia screaming at Tom over the phone, he had put her on speakerphone – probably to avoid the probable deafness he'd receive if he held the phone to his ear "Tom you have to _fire _him!" Julia yelled and Karen couldn't help but wonder who they were talking about.

"Who does Tom have to fire?" Karen asked tiredly, rubbing the itchy sleep away from her eyes as she did.

"Ellis," Tom and Julia said in sync.

"This might seem like a stupid question but why?"

"Because he posted the video of you singing Never Give All the Heart on YouTube," Julia shouted clearly angered by the incident and Karen couldn't blame her, in fact she didn't see why Tom could be so quiet on the subject.

"Tom, why are you so quiet? We all know that the weasel is going to tear it apart," Karen asked, it seemed like the obvious thing to say "Didn't you call him a Napoleonic Nazi at some point?"

"I might have done, but I did receive a phone call from Eileen Rand, who said she wanted to produce Marilyn," Tom replied excitedly

"That isn't an excuse, it's a recording of a private recording Tom, that breaks so many intellectual property laws it's unbelievable," Julia pointed and Tom couldn't help but agree… for now.


End file.
